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Engineering · Timekeeping & physics
Clockwork & Time
Tune a pendulum, hear an escapement tick, wind a mainspring and follow time from a quartz crystal to an atomic clock and GPS.
Engineering · Timekeeping & physics
Clockwork & Time
Tune a pendulum, hear an escapement tick, wind a mainspring and follow time from a quartz crystal to an atomic clock and GPS.
The course
7 worlds · 28 lessons
World 1 · The Swinging Heart: Pendulums
FREEEvery clock needs something that repeats
World 2 · Tick and Tock: Escapements
PROThe part that lets the clock count
World 3 · Gear Trains: Counting Time
PRORatios that turn a beat into hands
World 4 · Complications
PROGears that count days, months and moons
World 5 · Quartz and Beyond
PROA crystal that squeezes back- 01A crystal that squeezes backPiezoelectricity and the 32 768 Hz fork · 13 minPRO
- 02How accurate is quartz?The temperature curve and ageing · 13 minPRO
- 03The quartz revolutionHow a crystal reshaped an industry · 11 minPRO
- 04Radio-controlled and eco-poweredTying a quartz clock to something better · 12 minPRO
World 6 · Atomic Time
PROWhen the second belongs to the atom- 01Defining the secondNine billion ticks from a caesium atom · 12 minPRO
- 02How an atomic clock worksA feedback loop that locks to the atom · 14 minPRO
- 03Optical clocks and a future secondTicking with light · 13 minPRO
- 04UT1, UTC, TAI and leap secondsKeeping the atomic and the astronomical in step · 13 minPRO
World 7 · Time Across the Planet
PROFrom time zones to GPS- 01Time zones and the 15-degree ruleWhy noon happens at different hours · 12 minPRO
- 02The longitude problemHow a clock found a ship · 14 minPRO
- 03How GPS finds you with clocksDistances from time, and why four satellites · 14 minPRO
- 04Relativity in your pocketWhy GPS satellite clocks are set wrong on purpose · 13 minPRO